Wow! Flying is amazing! I think I might be spoiled forever Just over two hours after I left my offic

It s no secret that we have been less than enthusiastic about airport expansion, of which Porter Air s operation has become the most prominent example. That being said, it s worth noting that Jonathan s review could not have been more glowing:
Wow! Flying is amazing! I think I might be spoiled forever Just over two hours after I left my office, I was standing in Ottawa. To give that some context, I left work a little early and got to Ottawa before I normally get out of the office. Compare that with a train trip that takes over 4 hours for the trip alone! That two hours even includes 30 mins I had to kill in a nice lounge with free drinks and wifi.
Actually, we fully expect that his account is more or less typical, and we ve heard similar stories from others. Not only that, but, as he points out, you would expect an experience so clearly superior to the train to cost way more, right? Not so! The plane is just $41.70 more for a round-trip than the train, Jonathan writes. That's less than $7 for every hour you save.
So what s the problem? If this is such a great service which is clearly filling a need (or, you know, at least the Western I want it! definition of need), how come so many people are getting so many bees in so many bonnets?
In fact, it comes down to that all-too-loaded word: cost. What we of course should have said is that Porter Air (and air travel in general) has a relatively low price . The cost , on the other hand, is both hidden and high.
These aren t abstract, touchy-feely costs either. They re real economic ones that we ll all end up paying one way or another. The most blatant of these is the cost of climate change, which air travel contributes to much more than train travel, both because of the extra fuel/energy that s needed to fly a plane, and also because of the high altitude at which those emissions are released. The Stern report greece car rental (as everyone is hopefully tired of hearing about) pegged the real cost of not acting to reduce the severity of climate change (it s already too late to stop it completely) at 3.68 trillion pounds . (Trillion! greece car rental Pounds!) Stern, along with renowned author George Monbiot and the IPCC have also identified that, in order to avoid the worst of what climate change has to offer, we ll need to make somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80% reductions in emissions below 1990 levels (that s significant always pay attention to the base year when people are talking about reductions) by the year 2050 at the latest (Monbiot suggests 2030).
greece car rental Either we believe the science or we don t. If we do, then we ll quickly come to realize that there s no room for flights of convenience in a world needing an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. (Note also the related but slightly different health and economic costs tied to air quality in Toronto .)
Does that make Jonathan, or others who fly Porter, bad people? We don t think so. They re simply making decisions that make sense for them , based on the information they re presented with. That s reasonable that s what we all do. And the most significant piece of information they have, in this case, is the artificially low price of the plane ticket, which hides its true, high cost. That s why the idea of using the tax system to send the right price signals to the market is gaining in popularity. In other words, flying, which has a high cost once the externalities are factored greece car rental in, should be significantly more expensive than taking the train. (This can be done in concert with reductions on other kinds of taxes, greece car rental so that it s revenue neutral and more politically palatable.)
greece car rental In that scenario, individuals will be able to make informed decisions about whether or not they think flying is really worth it. If they do, then fine, but fewer people will. A level of personal freedom will be preserved, and emissions will also be reduced. Unfortunately, of course, this is one of those things that would have to be implemented provincially or federally . Until then, we ll have to focus on the things that can be done municipally .
It s also worth pointing out that, according to the Economist, flying greece car rental s contribution greece car rental to the total man-made emissions worldwide is about 3%. Inexpensive airlines like Porter, greece car rental and even larger ones like Ryanair, Westjet, etc. would make up a tiny fraction of that 3%.
It s funny because I just flew a Porter flight back from Montreal on Monday, and didn t think the service was that spectacular. The additional cost (over Air Canada) was not really worth it, and the plane was actually quite loud! Now, I would have loved to have gone on the earlier flight when i got to the airport, but I was never told by anyone greece car rental on their team until i saw it leave the gate when I walked there. I doubt I will fly Porter again it wasn t worth it Next time I will take the train, and use both m laptop and mobile phone the whole time while they are charging to boot!
Of course not Diane. This has nothing to do with opinions or punishment, nor is the idea of using the tax system in this way novel. The tax would be a calculation of the real and measurable externalities of an activity factored into the price of the product or service. It s an idea that s been advocated by economists longer than politicians, and is now at least being considered, in one form or another, by the majority of Canada s national political parties.
While the article refers to Porter Airlines flying out of Toronto City Centre, it goes on to argue the point of flying in general. I think the fairer comparison is between the same flight ( to Ottawa for example ), originating greece car rental from Toronto City Centre and Toronto Pearson. I suspect the answer is that Porter is no worse, and if you factor in the travel on highways required to get anywhere near Pearson, its probably ahead.
The point regarding using the tax system, and more generally the price signal is well made, its far more effective then most methods used to encourage or discourage behaviour. I would support applying this to all flights, on the basis of distance traveled per passenger as a tax against environmental damage.
Also, if you ve got some evidence that travel by plane takes less energy than travel by train, I d like to see it. These short-run flights are actually comparatively worse than longer flights, since a disproportionately large amount of fuel is used during greece car rental takeoff and landing.
Cam: Easy for us to forget that flying is already a luxury greece car rental inaccessible to most in the world. Since it s obvious that if everyone flew as much as we do it would be disastrous (not to mention impossible given remaining supplies greece car rental of easily available, cheap oil), the least we can do is stop flaunting it.
As for your Economist numbers, as anyone looking at how to accomplish reductions knows there is no one silver bullet. Sure airline travel is only one small piece of the puzzle, but small pieces are all we have.
The customer goes online to calculate the amount of carbon dioxide their trip will generate and the cost to offset it, then contributes to an environmentally friendly project to cancel out their share of carbon dioxide generated by their flight. The extra amount will be added to their ticket greece car rental purchase.
According to Zerofootprint, who is partnering with Air Canada on this, a passenger would pay $19.20 to offset a return flight from Toronto to London while a Vancouver resident would pay $12.80 for a return flight to Montreal.
greece car rental Myself, greece car rental I d be very interested to know how Air Canada/Zerofootprint will be spending this additional money, and what auditing will be in place to ensure an environmentally friendly project is just that.
I don t think it s news that airplanes are some of the biggest polluters out there. It certainly wasn t news to me. Because these flights are an integral part of my job and can t be avoided, I did what I know a lot of my colleagues do did some research, greece car rental and paid to be carbon neutral (gold standard, natch).
The David Suzuki Foundation website has a lot of great information on going this route. I can t link to it here, but if you re someone who flies a lot, or someone who is interested in making their every day, grounded life carbon neutral as well, I recommend starting there and making an educated decision about where to send your money.
greece car rental Diane, the issue of carbon offsets greece car rental is an interesting one, and you re right to ask those questions. Zerofootprint has some information about how they spend the money on their site . I also took a look at the issue in a slightly more general way here , if you re interested.
The info about the different types of offset companies is very interesting. Zerofootprint is good, but only a handful of org s worldwide meet the strict gold standard requirements, and it really is worth checking out. I was very interested to learn that not all carbon offsettin activities are equal, in terms of real, positive environmental impact!!
The plane may contribute to climate change, but Porter uses Bombardier Q400 turboprop planes, and they are the least polluting planes (for commercial use) currently in use. Not the best, but better than driving for four hours in a gas guzzling suv or a greyhound behemoth.
greece car rental The only reasonable way is to cost out their relative environmental impacts and other externalities ( which I am confident flying is the greatest) and then tax them according to their per unit impacts; still leaving the customer with a choice of 4 or 5 ways to get to Montreal (or wherever)
What would be the real economic cost of reducing flights of convenience (whatever those might be) versus the real economic costs saved by reducing their related greenhouse gases? If its more, is the argument about the cost then in favour of not stopping these flights? Unless you have both of those numbers, you can t really argue one way or the other from a dollars perspective.
FACT: Porter is flying THE MOST environmentally friendly aircraft in its class, requiring a fraction of the energy required to move the same number of people by heavy-pol